Wednesday, 8 August 2012

Pita Bake Edmonton, AB - Stone baked fresh pitas

Food 8/10
With our goal set on having a quick meal, and having their a luke-warm version of their fatayers at the Palestinian Bazaar earlier this year and been back a couple times since to try their traditional pita pies, this time, we wanted to try their more Westernized versions -we headed down to Pitabake tucked in right behind an EMS station up north. This little family run business has a friendly fellow up front and staff are happy to answer your questions. Onto the food!

There's a good selection of non-alcoholic drinks, so being a hot night, we went with this peach drink, which tasted like a less sweet version of orange crush.

Against the back wall, its dominated by a huge oven, where the stone baked pitas are born. We sat back and enjoyed our drinks while we watch several pitas (ours included) get assembled: pull and stretch dough, add toppings, and finally get tossed into the oven to bake to perfection.

When the stone baked pita pies were done, we were called up. The first one out was the Philly Cheesestea​k pita Now, you could eat them like a pizza pie - open faced to see the toppings, or sandwich it together like a calzone and have a handy easily portable pie to eat.. just wait a few min for the cheese to set and glue everything together to avoid a huge mess! The Philly cheesesteak was topped with some slices ofslightly dry donair meat, some red peppers, and a mixture of white and yellow melted cheeses atop of their crisp baked pita.

The next pita pie out was the Tandoori Chicken pita. On the same baked pita crust, a base of mildly spicy and flavorful Tandoori style red tinged sauce with strong notes of tomato and cumin is topped with shredded/ground chicken and topped with a smattering of cheese. Tasty, but could have used a lot more cheese to add more flavor and to hold the toppings together a bit better.

Our last pie of the night was the Popeye pita, Its a traditional one, but I love the tanginess of Lebanese spinach pies. If you're looking for a non-sour-tangy spinach pie, you need to look elsewhere as true to traditional Lebanese pita pies, the spinach is seasoned with a good hit of sour and tangy summac (which also turns the spinach a slight purple color) - this I learned recenty from my Lebanese girlfriend Lena, despite eating countless pita pies for years, and being blissfully clueless! The tangy fresh spinach was dotted with melted white cheeseto help hold the pita toppings together.

the VERDICT
I still prefer to get the more traditional pies at Sunbake Pita Bakery, but overall, a great little spot to have stone baked pita pies with a westernized twist.